George Lakey has played a part in direct action campaigns for over six decades. He has recently retired from Swarthmore College. Some of history giving him a background in social issues include being arrested in the civil rights movement and most recently in the climate justice movement. George has facilitated 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national and international levels.  Waging Nonviolence 

Briefly and what I am reading in public and in the comments section here, I think it “might” be of interest to our readers also.

HT to Juan Cole at Informed Comment for featuring this commentary.

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I’m encountering a great deal of alarm among progressive activists regarding continued Republican claims of a stolen election. Do these anti-democratic efforts mean a coup attempt is under way?

Despite being among the first to write about the possibilities of a coup, I have to say (as of this moment) the answer is “No.” My colleagues at Choose Democracy — who have been preparing Americans to defeat a power grab for the past several months — have also stopped short of describing what we’ve seen and heard this week as a coup. In a release today, they said: “What we have seen has been slow, poorly rolled out, and has none of the surprise elements associated with a traditional coup.”

So what are we to make of the Trump campaign’s lawsuits, Republicans refusing to honor the election results and the Department of Justice looking into “allegations” of supposed voter fraud? If this isn’t a coup, then what is it?

The politics of grievance

The New Coup Attempt

Via Truthout comes this thought:

In 2016, the big takeaway was that 53 percent of white women voters cast their ballots in favor of Donald Trump, according to exit polls, helping cement his victory. But, in 2020, white women voters surpassed their 2016 levels of support as, according to exit polls, 55 percent of white women turned out to vote for the president…

Via the New York Times exit poll reporting reflects this impression from the Edison Research polling.

Barkley Rosser, Econospeak Blog, “Is Trump Going To Attempt A Coup?”

I realize that Joe Biden just held a press conference where he basically dismissed the refusal of Trump and a lot of other Republicans to concede the presidential election to Biden as “embarrassing,” laughing at Secretary of State Pompeo who earlier today talked about a transition to a second Trump term, and said it will all be over and fine by Jan. 20. Maybe, but I am somebody who has taken seriously for a long time words from people like Michael Cohen and more recently Mary Trump who have said he simply will not go willingly and will continue to refuse to accept defeat. I have watched various commentators supporting him from time to time thinking, “Will they support him if he declares martial law?” Unfortunately, I think a lot of them will.

He certainly is laying the groundwork for making an attempt. The obvious such sign was yesterday’s firing of SecDef Esper, reportedly because Esper made it clear in June he would not order US troops to move on peaceful civilian demonstrators in Washington. Rumor has it he is about to replace the FBI and CIA directors also. And the Undersec of DOD is also out. It certainly looks like he is trying to stock the top levels of the military and intelligence establishment with total toadies who will do his bidding. If he makes the move and invokes the Insurrection Act or simply declares a National Emergency, which, frankly, is in his legal power. Will these newly installed flunkies stand up to him? Who will?

I am seriously worried about this, and the more I see people like Mitch McConnell and Sean Hannity just spouting rank lies about the election, my concern grows. I hope I am wrong, but I am now afraid we may be facing a very serious showdown over this, and I see the refusal of certain foreign authoritarian leaders friendly to Trump, such as Putin, not accepting the result, as a sign that they would support him if he made such a move, and we know he really likes and admires those guys. This is a very bad situation.

Barkley Rosser

Of Australian descent singer Helen Reddy passed on September 29, 2020 largely unnoticed, at least by me an old coffee house Marine. Helen’s song “I am Woman” was the 1972 anthem and soundtrack of the women’s movement, with the opening lyrics of “I am woman, hear me roar . . . In numbers too big to ignore” turning her into a feminist icon.

In 2011, Billboard named her the number-28 adult contemporary artist of all time (number-9 woman). In 2013, the Chicago Tribune dubbed her the “Queen of ’70s Pop”.

In 2015, Helen Reddy was diagnosed as having dementia and had moved into the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Samuel Goldwyn Center, where she was cared for by family and friends. Reddy appeared in downtown Los Angeles at the January 21, 2017 Women’s March. The march for women’s rights and unity following the inauguration of Donald Trump brought out 750,000 people. Reddy was introduced by actress Jamie Lee Curtis and sang an a cappella version of “I Am Woman”.

For Aussie singers, Helen was one of the best along with the likes of Judith Durham of “The Seekers.”

Helen Reddy Reddy died on September 29, 2020 in Los Angeles at age 78.

Helen Reddy, I Am Woman singer & feminist icon. Woman’s Agenda,

Helen Reddy, the roaring sound of feminism, The Sydney Morning Hearld

Did The Hunter Biden Laptop Come From China?

Steve Hutkins at Save The Post Office, October 26, 2020

In response to several inquiries from members of Congress, the Office of Inspector General has issued a report on “Operational Changes to Mail Delivery.” The report discusses the Postal Service’s plan to eliminate 64 million work hours — the equivalent of 33,000 jobs — by implementing 57 cost-cutting initiatives. As discussed in this previous post, the plan represents one of the largest downsizing efforts in the 50-year history of the Postal Service.

These 57 “Do It Now FY Strategies” include restrictions on overtime, late and extra trips from processing centers, and all the other cost-cutting measures that have caused the delivery delays we’ve seen since July. They also include numerous other changes to postal operations that have not received much, if any, attention.

The report criticizes postal leadership on several counts. First, the Postal Service “did not complete a study or analysis of the impact the changes would make on mail service prior to implementation.” Second, “documentation and guidance to the field for these strategies was very limited and almost exclusively oral.” That caused “confusion and inconsistency” and “compounded the significant negative service impacts across the country.”

The IG also criticizes management for a third major failing: The Postal Service did not “fully respond” to questions and document requests from Congress and did not share information about the plan beyond what the Postmaster General was specifically asked in his testimony before the House and Senate.

As a result, Congress was not informed of the existence of the Work Hour Reduction Plan and the “Do It Now FY Strategies” before or during the Postmaster General’s testimony to Congress. The plan is not mentioned at all in Senator Gary Peters “Failure to Deliver” report or his update report. It’s very likely that Congress has yet to receive a full accounting of the plan.

Figures 1 & 2

An examination of the Framers’ arguments as to how the US Supreme Court would function: The Federalist Papers No’s. 78, 79, and 81